Three
Now I’m all alone with him. What am I supposed to do? Jodi thought, eyeing the still-glaring Beast Kindred in the front seat of the shuttle as the second shuttle with her little sister and Liosh in it drove away.
Vorn seemed to be wondering the same thing.
“Would you like to sit up front?” he asked at last, raising an eyebrow at her. “It would probably be easier for you to give me directions to your domicile that way.”
“Yeah, okay—sure,” Jodi muttered, though getting any closer to the big Kindred was the last thing she wanted to do. She started to get out of the back seat, only to have him come around quickly to open the door for her before she could get it for herself.
Jodi felt a flash of irritation.
“You don’t have to do that, you know,” she said, frowning up at him. “I mean, always open my door or pull out my chair. I’m a liberated woman—I don’t need to be treated like an invalid or a child.”
“I’m treating you with respect whether you want me to or not,” the big Kindred growled. “So if you want to get your own doors and chairs, that’s too damn bad.”
Jodi thought about arguing that he wasn’t respecting her wishes not to be respected, but even in her head that sounded too ridiculous—like she was picking a fight just for the sake of fighting.
Well, aren’t you? whispered a little voice in her head. Aren’t you fighting with him in order to put the way you feel around him out of your head?
Jodi pushed the little voice aside. It was ridiculous. She didn’t feel any specific way around Vorn except irritated.
But was it irritation that caused her to press her thighs together and shift in her seat when she was settled in the front of the shuttle beside him? Or was it that maddening, masculine scent of his, invading her senses and making her bra feel too itchy against her suddenly sensitive nipples and her panties feel too tight against the tender skin of her pussy?
Jodi didn’t know. She only knew the big Kindred affected her and the effect he had on her was bad. As she gave him curt, clipped directions back to her apartment just off the USF campus, she couldn’t help thinking that she really, really needed some alone time, damn it.
Hopefully soon, she would get some. Although how she would manage it with the big Kindred in the house, she had no idea.
Gods, had her scent gotten even stronger and sweeter?
Vorn cast a sidelong glance at his passenger as she told him in a tight, annoyed voice how to get to her domicile. He hadn’t thought it was possible for her feminine fragrance to affect him more, but damn if his shaft wasn’t at full mast and snarling in his flight leathers for release just because she was nearby. He could practically smell her pussy getting hotter by the minute—almost as if she was going into some kind of fucking heat.
Did that happen to Earth females?
Vorn tried to remember if he’d learned anything about that when he was studying human anatomy and culture before being cleared to go Earth-side. But he couldn’t recall if he’d learned anything to that effect or not.
Well, if she is going into heat, it’s got nothing to do with you, he told himself firmly. Probably she’s just been away from this fucking fiancé of hers she keeps talking about for too long. Probably she needs him to service her. That might lighten her mood, too. The Goddess knows it couldn’t get much heavier than it is now.
Actually, Vorn was interested to meet the male in question. Jodi was a formidable female—it must have taken a real Alpha to bring her to the brink of Joining—or marriage, as the humans called it.
Though the human idea of a life-long commitment was laughable, he thought. Over half of their relationships ended in divorce—a mutual parting of ways. This was a foreign concept to the Kindred. Vorn remembered how puzzled he had been when he first learned about it.
Divorce, to him, didn’t make any damn sense. How could you abandon the mate the Goddess had chosen for you and take another? It would be like cutting off a foot or a hand and trying to find a new one to sew on in its place—an idea which was as stupid as it was strange.
Still, that was humans for you—a big mass of confusing contradictions, Vorn thought, casting another side-long look at Jodi from the corner of his eye. He just hoped that her fiancé was home and could service her quickly when they reached her domicile.
Not that he relished the idea of another male doing anything to the curvy little female sexually—that was actually a really uncomfortable thought. But something had to be done about her obvious need—Jodi was shifting her lush ass around like her seat was red-hot and rubbing her thighs together like she was trying to start a fire—or maybe put one out, Vorn thought dryly.